Discussion

Found recipes

I buy a lot of my cookbooks from garage sales and used book stores. One of my favorite things is finding notes in the margins and occasionally..... the "found" recipe. A handwritten recipe on a scrap of paper stuck in the book. The most recent recipe I found was in a copy of "Hoppin' John's Lowcountry Cooking." It's a half sized notebook page, handwritten with a recipe for Pimento Cheese. What have you found lately?

I also love and seek out used cookbooks, particularly community and Junior League cookbooks.

I think you would enjoy a book I checked out of the library a few months ago: Handwritten Recipes: A Bookseller's Collection of Curious and Wonderful Recipes Forgotten Between the Pages, by Michael Popek.

Heirloom Baking with the Brass Sisters is another cookbook which collects recipes found in used cookbooks on cards or in the margins. All tested and some updated (difference between stoves or ingredients then and now). A little history, a little story-telling.

This is handwritten (in cursive) All wording is exactly as it is on the yellowed notebook paper. Pimento Cheese-Food Processor1/2 lb. sharp cheddar cheese1 jar (4 oz) pimento cheese2 to 3 drops of Tobasco Sauce1/2 t salt1/2 t pepper1/2 cup mayonnaise1 T onionsShred cheese. Put steel blade in bowl and blend ingridiants til smooth. Now i THINK the writer meant a 4 oz jar of pimentos drained... but that's what she wrote. I am comparing it to the pimento cheese in the book and it makes a lot more sense that way.

I bought a cookbook recently which was full of those kinds of recipes (I collect them, as well as cookbooks), expecting the usual Aunt Ethel's Best Jam and Emma's Pie Recipe types, and much to my surprise I found the oldest handwritten recipe for beer I've ever come across! It looks to be written with a fountain pen, with the antique penmanship to match. My neighbour homebrews, so we're going to give it a try!

That was actually suggested to me last time I moved. "Why are you keeping a big picnic basket of scraps of paper!" Some are handwritten, many are what she clipped out of a magazine or newspaper. Like an idiot I didn't back up those I had typed in, but I did keep the originals so i can start over (JUMP DRIVE DAMMIT!) Some might never be worth cooking.... but just knowing the magazine it came from or the time makes it kind of fun for me. For some reason it was important to her.